<p>I know Philly is a train ride away but what is closer by -- walking distance of a cabride if you want to get away from campus and clear your head?</p>
<p>The Baltimore Pike, a main thoroughfare, which has department stores, "big box" stores, supermarket, restaurants, shops of all varieties. Depending on how far you would like to walk, and how quickly you walk, I'd say you can reach some of these points within 15 minutes.</p>
<p>Tier 1: the Ville (5-minute walk from the center of campus, closer than that to many dorms). Hair salons, pizza, Chinese food, Dunkin Donuts, small diner, small grocery store, etc. The train tracks separate most of campus from the Ville, making the train station much less than 5 minutes' walk from most dorms. </p>
<p>Tier 2: the Pike (15-25 minute walk, depending on how far along the Pike you need to go). Springfield Mall, Target (new one being constructed!), Bertucci's, Olive Garden, Heng's Thai (fabulous Thai food), Peace-a-Pizza, Qdoba, etc. There is also a shuttle twice weekly to Target (as of now the nearer one is still under construction) and Genuardi's, which is a larger supermarket than the one in the Ville.</p>
<p>Here's a Google map:</p>
<p>Google</a> Maps</p>
<p>Everything along the Baltimore Pike to about Bertuccis is easy walking distance. That's about a mile from campus. There is a mall (with the new Target) and a ton of restaurants within that distance. the Sproul Shopping Center where the Thai restaurant is located also has a Baja Fresh, an Outback Steakhouse, a Starbucks next door, etc.</p>
<p>In addition to hoofin' it or the Target shuttle van, there's a SEPTA city bus route that runs right thru campus, up to the Mall, and along the Baltimore Pike towards Philly. It runs every twenty minutes or so, basically around the clock.</p>
<p>Swatties often go over to Media for dinner. It's become a center of trendy restaurants in a quaint old downtown. There are lot of good, fun places like Iron Horse Brew Pub, a seriously good Indian restaurant, a fusion Japanese restaurant opened by Morimoto's sous-chef from downtown and from the Iron Chef battles. Those options are on the map to the west of Swarthmore. It's a couple of stops on the train. That ended up being where my daughter and her friends and their parents went most often for a "fancy" dinner. Bertucci's is great for a cold beer and wood-fired pizza after a grubby day schlepping stuff into dorm rooms.</p>
<p>Wow thank you -- didn't know you could do that with goggle maps! Very helpful</p>
<p>BTW, one of the characteristics that makes Swarthmore unique is that very few students have, or want, cars on campus. Only about 10% of the students have cars. My daughter had a car available to take to college, but she didn't want it until senior year.</p>
<p>With the exception of some service roads, Swarthmore dug up all the roads running thru campus years ago (the road up to the library used to loop around the Rose Garden, behind Parrish where Kohlberg now sits, and link up with the circle at the amphitheater end of Parrish). </p>
<p>Now, the parking lots are all on the perimeter of campus and you basically encounter no cars on campus whatsoever. </p>
<p>Nobody in their right mind would drive to New York city from Swarthmore for the weekend and pay for parking. Public transportation -- rail, bus, and air -- is so convenient.</p>
<p>Live in Mary Lyons.. you do feel that you're going home every night.. of course there're many disadvantages of living there</p>